Al-Majdal was the forward position of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force based in Gaza. The village was conquered by Israeli forces on 5 November 1948, by which time most of the Arab population had fled, leaving some 2,700 inhabitants, of which 500 were deported by Israeli soldiers in December 1948; the town was named Migdal Gaza, Migdal Gad and Migdal Ashkelon by the new Jewish inhabitants. Most of the remaining Arabs were deported by 1950. In 1953, the nearby neighborhood of Afridar was incorporated and the name "Ashkelon" was readopted to the town. By 1961, Ashkelon was ranked 18th among Israeli urban centers with a population of 24,000. In 2018 the population of Ashkelon was 140,968; the name Ashkelon is western Semitic, might be connected to the triliteral root š-q-l attesting to its importance as a center for mercantile activities. Its name appeared in Phoenician and Punic as ŠQLN and ʾŠQLN. Scallion and shallot are derived from the Latin name for Ashkelon. Ashkelon was the oldest and largest seaport in Canaan, part of the pentapolis of the Philistines, north of Gaza and south of Jaffa.

The Neolithic site of Ashkelon is located on 1.5 km north of Tel Ashkelon. It is dated by Radiocarbon dating to c. 7900 bp, to the poorly known Pre-Pottery Neolithic C phase of the Neolithic. It was excavated in 1954 by French archaeologistJean Perrot. In 1997–1998, a large scale salvage project was conducted at the site by Yosef Garfinkel on behalf of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and nearly 1,000 square metres were examined. A final excavation report was published in 2008. In the site over a hundred fireplaces and hearths were found and numerous pits, but no solid architecture, except for one wall. Various phases of occupation were found, one atop the other, with sterile layers of sea sand between them; this indicates. The main finds were c. 20,000 flint artifacts. At Neolithic sites flints far outnumber animal bones; the bones belong to non-domesticated animals. When all aspects of this site are taken into account, it appears to have been used by pastoral nomads for meat processing; the nearby sea could supply salt necessary for the conservation of meat.

The city was built on a sandstone outcropping and has a good underground water supply. It was large as an ancient city with as many as 15,000 people living inside the walls. Ashkelon was a thriving Middle Bronze Age city of more than 150 acres, its commanding ramparts, measuring 1.5 miles long, 50 feet high and 150 feet thick, as a ruin they stand two stories high. The thickness of the walls was so great that the mudbrick city gate had a stone-lined, 8 feet wide tunnel-like barrel vault, coated with white plaster, to support the superstructure: it is the oldest such vault found. Roman and Islamic fortifications, faced with stone, followed the same footprint, a vast semicircle protecting Ashkelon on the land side. On the sea it was defended by a high natural bluff. A roadway more than 20 feet in width ascended the rampart from the harbor and entered a gate at the top. In 1991 the ruins of a small ceramictabernacle was found a finely cast bronze statuette of a bull calf silvered, 4 inches long.

Images of calves and bulls were associated with the worship of the Canaanite gods Baal. Ashkelon is mentioned in the Egyptian Execration Texts of the 11th dynasty as "Asqanu." In the Amarna letters, there are seven letters to and from Ashkelon's king Yidya, the Egyptian pharaoh. One letter from the pharaoh to Yidya was discovered in the early 1900s; the Philistines conquered Canaanite Ashkelon about 1150 BCE. Their earliest pottery, types of structures and inscriptions are similar to the early Greek urbanised centre at Mycenae in mainland Greece, adding weight to the hypothesis that the Philistines were one of the populations among the "Sea Peoples" that upset cultures throughout the eastern Mediterranean at that time. Ashkelon became one of the five Philistine cities that were warring with the Israelites and the United Kingdom of Israel and successive Kingdom of Judah. According to Herodotus, its temple of Venus was the oldest of its kind, imitated in Cyprus, he mentions that this temple was pillaged by marauding Scythians during the time of

An areostationary orbit or areosynchronous equatorial orbit is a circular areo­synchronous orbit in the Martian equatorial plane about 17,032 km above the surface, any point on which revolves about Mars in the same direction and with the same period as the Martian surface. Areo­stationary orbit is a concept similar to Earth's geo­stationary orbit; the prefix areo- derives from Ares, the ancient Greek god of war and counterpart to the Roman god Mars, with whom the planet was identified. The modern Greek word for Mars is Άρης. To date, no artificial satellites have been placed in this orbit, but it is of interest to some scientists foreseeing a future tele­communications network for the exploration of Mars. An asteroid or station placed in areostationary orbit could be used to construct a Martian space elevator for use in transfers between the surface of Mars and orbit. Orbital speed is calculated by multiplying the angular speed of the satellite by the orbital radius: R s y n = G T 2 4 π 2 3 G = Gravitational constant m2 = Mass of the celestial body T = rotational period of the bodyBy this formula one can find the geostationary-analogous orbit of an object in relation to a given body, in this case, Mars.

The mass of Mars being 6.4171 × the sidereal period 88,642 seconds. The synchronous orbit thus has a radius of 20,428 km from the centre of mass of Mars, therefore areostationary orbit can be defined as 17,032 km above the surface of the Mars equator. Any satellites in areostationary orbit will suffer from increased orbital station keeping costs, because the Clarke belt of Mars lies between the orbits of the planet's two natural satellites. Phobos has a semi-major axis of 9,376 km, Deimos has a semi-major axis of 23,463 km; the close proximity to Phobos in particular will cause unwanted orbital resonance effects that will shift the orbit of areostationary satellites. Geostationary orbit Areosynchronous orbitList of orbits Mars Network - Marsats - NASA site devoted to future communications infrastructure for Mars exploration Bandwidth available from an areostationary satellite

The tenth volume Russian Philosophy had appeared as Philosophy in Russia in 1986. The eleventh volume Logical Postivism and Existentialism had appeared as the revised 1972 edition of Contemporary Philosophy; the series has been translated into Italian, Spanish, Chinese, Romanian and Persian. The following is a summary of details for the eleven volumes: Originally published in 1946, this volume covers: Pre-Socratic philosophy The Socratic period PlatoAristotle Post-Aristotelian philosophyAs with others in the series, this volume would be made available by Image Books in two parts, the first ending with Plato, the second beginning with Aristotle. Gerard J. Hughes reports that in years Copleston thought the first volume "deplorable" and wished that he had had the time to rewrite it. Published in 1950, this volume, which has borne the subtitle Medieval Philosophy, covers: Pre-mediaeval Influences The Carolingian Renaissance The Tenth and Twelfth Centuries Islamic and Jewish Philosophy The Thirteenth Century Copleston produced a work on Medieval Philosophy which and expanded, became A History of Medieval Philosophy.